How to Buy Bitcoin

Buying Bitcoin is a whole lot easier than you'd think! You can obtain it on or offline,
from anyone, anywhere in the world.

Before we get into that; What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a digital currency without all of the pesky limitations set by traditional currencies.
The payment network behind Bitcoin is decentralized, which means no single entity holds the reins. In fact,
anyone can take part in supporting the network if desired.

Bitcoin will never just shut down out of nowhere since literally anyone can be a part of the network
from their home. There are even businesses out there whose sole purpose is maintaining servers that
keep the network operating smoothly.

So it has a good network; What does Bitcoin cost?

The price of Bitcoin is always fluctuating. It's a currency traded on dozens of exchanges world-wide, with
new ones showing up all of the time. The price doesn't really matter in the short-term, what matters is what
you can actually do with Bitcoin that you can't do with traditional currency. Let me give you an example!

Say you want to transfer $100.00 USD to someone right now, and cash is not an option. You could use a Money Transfer Service
or perhaps a Bank Wire Transfer Service. No matter what you do - you're looking at a fee
of at least $5.00 USD. That's a 5% or higher fee to simply move money from one place to the next.

With Bitcoin, the same transaction would amount to a fee that is measured in cents not dollars! To top it off, you
don't need any person in the middle to be able to send and receive bitcoin, you essentially get to be your own bank. How cool is that?

The price fluctuates; Can I lose money with this?

Simply put: Yes you can, and there are many factors that cause the fluctuations of the Bitcoin:USD price ratio.
You have to think of Bitcoin as a store of value. USD is being artifically inflated and has been for decades. Not to mention
USD is printed with no limits.

There will only ever be 21 Million Bitcoin ever produced. This is a hard cap! This number will never be raised for any reason.

Who is "printing" the Bitcoin?

Every single person that has access to a computer is able to earn Bitcoin via "Mining". Bitcoin heavily relies on mathemetical algorithms
being solved by these "Miners". Your computer can run software that tries to resolve the answer to a complex random math problem. If your
computer is the one that solves the problem: you earn 25 Bitcoins! Most users join a "Mining Pool" and combine their processing power and split
the reward equally based on what you bring to the table.

At first people would mine using their CPU, later on software was created to take advantage of Graphics Cards, and eventually people started building
computer hardware that does nothing more than calculate the complex bitcoin algorithms. As you read this there are companies trying to produce better
and faster ways of solving the math problems. It's just like a space race.

I want to Buy Bitcoin!

Glad to hear! If you live in the United States it's highly advised to check out CoinBase.com.
They play by all of the US rules and regulations so you know you're dealing with a trustworthy establishment. If you live elsewhere
you can do a quick Google search for "Buy Bitcoin In [Your Country Name]" to see what options you have. Heck, you can even
check out LocalBitcoins to see what offers are around you in the real world.